The musical phenomenon, Andrea Bocelli will help ring in the New Year on Saturday, Dec. 29, in the Mandalay Bay Events Center. Last April, he performed before a sold-out house as part of the resort's second anniversary celebration. His return performance on New Year's weekend will be in support of his highly anticipated album release in October.

Tickets to experience Bocelli's inspiring voice go from $50 and $95 up to $400, call TicketMaster at 702-474-4000.

International singing star Julio Iglesias will bring his world tour to Paris, Oct. 17-21. Tickets are $75.

Ironically Iglesias studied law in school with the hopes of becoming a career diplomat, even though his first true love was soccer. He was an accomplished athlete and landed a job as a goalkeeper for the professional team Real Madrid. His athletic dreams were shattered; however, when a near-fatal car accident left him partially paralyzed and unable to work for almost two years.

While Iglesias was recovering, he started playing guitar and writing songs. In 1968, he won the Spanish Song Festival at Benidorm and his career took off.

Country singer Clint Black will follow Iglesias at Le Theatre des Arts in Paris on Oct. 26 and 27. He has brought the music world a string of million-selling albums and more than 25 Top 10 hits that have been self-penned. Tickets are $65, call 1-877-374-7469 or 702-946-4567.

World-renowned rock performers The Guess Who and Joe Cocker are slated to headline at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on Friday, Oct. 19. Tickets are $25, $35 and $50, call 1-877-632-7400 or 702-632-7580.

Dubbed the "American Woman" tour, this trip marks The Guess Who's first major excursion on U.S. soil since 1970. Last year, the group toured their Canadian homeland while promoting their newly released platinum double-live album entitled "Running Back Through Canada."

Recently some of The Guess Who's most notable hits have been featured in such blockbuster movies as "The Spy Who Shagged Me," "American Beauty," and "Almost Famous."

Spanning four decades, Joe Cocker, has successfully made his mark on rock music beginning with a No. 1 British hit, "With A Little Help From My Friends." In 1969, he performed at the historic Woodstock festival.

It wasn't until the 80's that Cocker received his first No. 1 single featured in the film "An Officer and A Gentleman." His most recent album release "No Ordinary World" features two singles written by musical talents Steve Winwood and Bryan Adams.

Happy Harry's is one of the latest restaurant / entertainment spots scheduled to open in November. Located in the Flamingo-Arville Plaza, half a block west of the new Palms hotel casino, the eatery will serve hot-baked designer subs in three sizes: small, medium and large. The subs will be named after Las Vegas' most popular entertainers. Each notable will decide and approve what ingredients go into the hot-baked celebrity sub that bears his or her name.

Happy Harry's will also serve juices, salad, desserts, and a variety of fresh fruit non-alcoholic daiquiris, tropical drinks, soft drinks and coffee. A few months down the line, beer and wine service as well as nightly entertainment will be instituted.

Happy Harry is a well-known Las Vegas figure himself. He previously owned many nightclubs, restaurants, bars and celebrity sandwich places in California. He created and owned the famed Whiskey A-Go-Go nightclub back in the 1960's and was also the innovator of the telephone nightclub where patrons could call from table to table to converse with other patrons.

After moving to Las Vegas ten years ago, Happy Harry opened the area's largest furniture liquidator business called Quality Liquidators. His new hot spot will have an eclectic setting and be open day and night.

Hilton Hotels has postponed for almost six months its previously announced $111 million timeshare resort on the north end of the Strip. The company began construction this summer on the 33-story, 1,500-unit Hilton Grand Vacations resort. The project will be delayed about six months.

Leave it to a fashion magazine to leak the future name of Steve Wynn's Desert Inn. The October issue of "Harper's Bazaar" features some of Las Vegas' influential women and Elaine Wynn is one of them. According to the article, Wynn said the new Desert Inn project will be called Le Reve. The translation is "the dream" and the name is in honor of a Pablo Picasso painting that she and her husband own.

The erotic portrait of Picasso's sleeping teenage mistress was completed in 1932 and sold at an auction in 1997. The price tag is supposed to be one of the most expensive art transactions in history.

The fall exhibition, "Alexander Calder: The Art of Invention," slated to open Oct. 6 at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art has been postponed indefinitely. The art gallery will reopen after the first of the year with a new exhibition currently in the planning stages.

TOP OF NEXT COLUMN

The Spago restaurant at the Forum Shops at Caesars has reopened after being closed for a $1 million renovation. The new look is a sunny California feel replacing the early '90s modern chic design and the bar area is bigger with more seating.

The Warner Bros. Studio store at the Forum Shops at Caesars will close Oct. 28, as part of a nationwide closure of all of its 125 stores.

The Stardust has closed its Tres Lobos Mexican Restaurant until further notice. Also the breakfast buffet and lunch buffet in the Coco Palms eatery has been discontinued until further notice. Dinner is served daily from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m.

"Splash" at the Riviera has changed its performance schedule. Shows are twice nightly at 7:30 and 10:30 p.m., Sunday through Thursday. All performances remain topless. For information, call 702-794-9433.

Les Brown's Band of Renown under the direction of the famed bandleader's son will appear at the Stardust on Saturday, Oct. 13. The orchestra, a fixture on the American popular music scene since the 1930s, will play for dancing in the Stardust Ballroom. Admission is $15.

The current Band of Renown has two members who have been with the orchestra for more than 55 years: trombonist Clyde "Stumpy" Brown (brother of Les Brown, Sr.) and vocalist Butch Stone.

Les Brown, Jr. joined the band as a vocalist. Over the years he assisted his father in the management of the band and in the production of recordings. He took over the baton following his father's death in January.

While working intermittently with the band, he successfully pursued careers in television and music.

As an actor, Les Brown, Jr. appeared in more than 200 segments of various television situation comedies and drams. For two years, he co-starred with Paul Ford and Judy Carne in the series "The Baileys of Balboa" and later spent two years on daytime dramas "The Young Married" and "General Hospital." He produced record albums and concert tours for pop musical acts such as Sly & The Family Stone and Loggins & Messina.

Joe Weider's Mr. Olympia Bodybuilding Tournament will return to Mandalay Bay on Oct. 26 and 27. For ticket information, call 702-632-7580.

On Friday, Oct. 26, women will take the stage for the Fitness Olympia and the Ms. Olympia competitions. The Mr. Olympia, the centerpiece of Olympia week, will take place Saturday night, Oct. 27, at 7 p.m. at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

The Olympia Expo is a massive fitness and bodybuilding trade-show on Friday and Saturday that's free to the public. Over 500 exhibits and dozens of demonstrations and shows, featuring every form of modern physical culture will be featured. This year's Expo will be larger than last year's, which exceeded 25,000.

Country fans need to check out The Castaways the third week of October. The CMOA - Country Music Organization Awards competition will take place from Tuesday, Oct. 16 through Saturday, Oct. 20. Entertainment will run from 8 a.m. through the night till 1 a.m.

Pianist/composer Rick Silanskas, who has the moniker "The Ambassador of Romance," was scheduled to do Sunday evening performances again at the Imperial Palace on Oct. 21 and 28. The Oct. 28 show was going to be taped as a television special that would air internationally in more than 20 countries; however, both shows have been cancelled.

Harry Basil along with two fellow comedians Claudia Sherman and Joe Moffa are headlining this week, Oct. 8-14, at The Comedy Stop at the Tropicana. Tickets are $17.50 with two drinks, tax and gratuity included.

Basil's act revolves around spoofing classic films. What began as a hobby, creating home movies when he was a kid, became an avocation while he was in high school.

Rodney Dangerfield picked Basil for HBO's "Young Comedians Special" and a long-term business relationship developed between the two. Not only does Basil tour with Dangerfield, he has co-written and co-produced his films, "Lady Bugs," "My 5 Wives" and "Meet Wally Sparks." He and Dangerfield co-created "Rodney," a half-hour prime time animated series, in devlopement at Fox Family Channel. Coming up next is another feature film co-written with Dangerfield entitled "The Fifth Tenor."

Master Chef Gustav Mauler's Spiedini Ristorante in The Regent Las Vegas was featured in the August/September 2001 issue of "Bride's Magazine" on page 826. The special feature was about the world's sexiest honeymoon resort spots and Spiedini Ristorante and The Regent were the only Las Vegas entities noted in the article.

Freakling Bros. three haunted houses will be open nightly at 6:30 p.m. from Oct. 12 through 31. The Dungeon is a haunted house located at Sunset Station Hotel & Casino on the corner of Stephanie and Sunset in Henderson. For information, call the Halloween hotline 702-362-FEAR.

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